What Are You Hearing?

By
Alex Baldinger

In the cover story for today's Weekend section, I profiled six local bands and musicians looking to build a name in the city's crowded but, by most accounts, collegial music scene. If you're a regular reader of this blog, some of these names might look familiar. But for anyone wondering whether the Rock and Roll Hotel serves continental breakfast and has in-room Wi-Fi, this is for you.

These aren't necessarily the town's biggest names. For example, there's no Wale. As great as he might be, I wanted to give someone else a try. I focused on performers who play most of their shows here in "The DMV," including a singer-songwriter for whom being laid off was a great career move, a pair of DJs trying to bring romance back to the dance floors of Northeast and an understated rapper who could teach biology to your kids.

[Update: [Imperial China, one of the bands I wrote about, has had to cancel tonight's scheduled show at the Velvet Lounge due to a band member's bout with pneumonia. Its next scheduled show is April 23 at DC9.]

I would love to see mention of some of the talented and young classical music groups/individuals, who make the DC scene extremely vibrant. I host house concerts on a fairly regular basis featuring primarily classical groups and individuals. At first I thought I would be able to feature only amateur musicians because I ask for donations for the artists. I quickly learned that I could get wonderful professional talent because there are so few venues.

It's great that the Post picked-up on the real vitality of the DC music scene that gets better each year. Alex Baldinger's comments on The Hall Monitors were right on the money. As Baldinger says - A bluesy sweaty roadhouse night of rock that is just the kind of night that we all need here in DC after a long hard work week. The Hall Monitors live gigs are incredible and us forget the meltdown and just let us get down and rock. I never miss a Hall Monitors gig in the DC metro area. Just getting ready to make a pilgrimage to SXSW to see the HM's and an amazing international line-up of garage rock R&B bands playing together with The Hall Monitors for 5 shows including free shows with COCKTAIL SLIPPERS (NORWAY), Los Coronas (Spain) She Creatures, The Breakers (Copenhagen), The Urges (Ireland), The Higher State (Spain), plus The Right Ons, The Woggles, Eli Paperboy Reid and The True Loves Powersolo